Both Sides of This Venezuela Mess Can Kiss My Ass

Let me say this slowly for the people in the back: I can despise Nicolás Maduro's authoritarian regime AND think Trump's invasion of Venezuela is imperialist bullshit. Both things. At the same time. I know that breaks some people's brains because apparently we all live in a Marvel movie now where you pick Team Iron Man or Team Thanos, but real life doesn't work like that.

Real life is messier. Real life is multiple villains and millions of innocent people stuck dealing with the consequences of their power games.

What kills me is watching people online act like if you're not cheering for American military intervention, you must be some Maduro sympathizer. Congratulations on discovering binary thinking. Truly groundbreaking stuff. It's lazy, it's stupid, and frankly, it pisses me off.

Venezuela wasn't always a basket case. For most of the 20th century, the Texas-size country was one of Latin America's richest countries, swimming in oil money. By the 1970s, Venezuelans enjoyed the highest per capita income in the region, a solid middle class, and a functioning democracy while their neighbors were getting coup'd left and right. Enter Hugo Chávez in 1999 with his Bolivarian Revolution. He promised to spread oil wealth to the poor, and for a while, it actually worked. Social programs expanded. Poverty dropped. People had hope. But the whole thing was built on sky-high oil prices and Chávez systematically dismantling every democratic institution that might've kept him in check. (Sounds familiar?)

So, yes, I'm highly skeptical of Trump playing liberator. In his press conference announcing Maduro's capture, Trump made it crystal clear that the U.S. won't be handing power over to Edmundo González, you know, the guy who actually won Venezuela's election. They're not recognizing those results either. They're not giving power to María Corina Machado. (Shocker!) No, the United States is going to "administer" Venezuela themselves.

Trump's already tapped Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to lead a "team" that will oversee Venezuela, with vague promises about "working with the Venezuelan people" while U.S. oil companies move in to "fix the badly broken infrastructure." Which really means American corporations get the oil, and Venezuelans get whatever's left over.

We've seen this movie before. Guatemala 1954. Chile 1973. Iran-Contra. Kuwait in 1990, Iraq in 2003. Every single time, Washington promised freedom and democracy, and every single time, what they delivered was chaos, death squads, sectarian violence, and decades of instability that served American interests while devastating the people they claimed to be saving.

Venezuela sits on the world's largest proven oil reserves. Trump even said it himself: "We're going to take back the oil that, frankly, we should have taken back a long time ago." So spare me the democracy talk. This isn't about restoring power to the Venezuelan people. If it were, they'd hand the keys to the person Venezuelans actually voted for. This is about resources. This is about control. This is about American interests, full stop.

Non-Venezuelans, myself included, need to sit down and shut up for a second.

I've seen countless videos of Venezuelans celebrating in the streets. Dancing. Crying with relief. And I've watched people in the comments calling them naive, gullible, even stupid for feeling hopeful. That's because shit seems stupid when it's not happening to you.

These are people who woke up without a dictator who's been suffocating their country for years. If I'd been living under Maduro's thumb, watching my country collapse, watching people I love flee or starve, I'd probably feel that flicker of hope too. Even knowing the risks. Even knowing the history.

And I understand that hope. I really do. When Gaddafi was killed in Libya, people celebrated in the streets exactly like this. They danced. They wept with joy. They believed their nightmare was finally over. But Libya today is a fractured state run by warlords and militias, with open-air slave markets and a humanitarian crisis that's still unfolding over a decade later. That celebration was real and justified and what came after was... and still... is a catastrophe.

Both things can be true.

You can be a leftist Venezuelan and hate Maduro. Because dictatorship isn't an ideology. It's a betrayal of democracy. Doesn't matter if it comes wrapped in left-wing rhetoric or right-wing nationalism. A dictatorship is a dictatorship.

The reason my fellow Latin Americans sitting comfortably outside Venezuela's crisis need to learn some good ol' fashioned Christian empathy is simple: you're not the one living it. The reason you can analyze this situation with detachment is precisely because you haven't had to. These people have earned the right to feel however they feel right now, including hopeful, even if that hope turns out to be misplaced.

I genuinely hope the day comes soon when Venezuelans get to decide their own future. When it's actually their voices, their votes, their choices that matter.

The truth is that when superpowers play chess with other countries, it's never the kings and queens who pay the price. It's always the pawns. It's always the people just trying to live their lives, raise their kids, and have a say in their own future.

What happened was a combination of good and bad, and with all shitty and not-so-shitty situations, there is nuance. Fuck both sides. And fuck anyone who thinks caring about Venezuelan lives means I have to pick a villain to root for.

@Santitos

@salinasmariasantos

Copyright © 2026 Maria Santos Salinas for FRONTeras.